A few screenshots from my most recent playthrough(s) of Skyrim SE,  I'm still playing on "SE" because I refuse the so called update and if it ever gets forced on me, although I have everything necessary backed up and can easily revert, I'll just uninstall and move on. 

 I did however install the updated Redist files because some SKSE mods now require it. 

I spent ages getting my mod list selected and working perfectly not long before the update and I don't feel like messing around with it again.  Didn't actually it know it was coming until it was almost on us because not everyone lives on forums and keeps up with games they're not currently playing.  I hadn't play the game since 2018 until recently but luckily had the important stuff backed up

Personal opinion incoming:  Waste of time posting it anywhere else with Bethesda fan boys/girls jumping all over you for having an opinion and using said forums for the purpose they were created..  Heaven forbid forums were used for that purpose.

IMO Bethesda did another scummy thing in the name of trying to dig into players pockets.  The update was free, but compulsory.  So, not really free, just hugely inconvenient with extras I don't want and will never use.    

If they had released an AE version the way they did with SE I might have bought it, but not this way.   I got SE free because I had the LE game, but I probably, maybe, would have paid for another separate "same" game.   

Definitely not interested in fishing and I just about spat my coffee when I saw a video of an NPC throwing a rod and line into a lake.  The fishing rod has sword animations, even as far as sheathing it.  It looks stupid.  😬

Then there's the myriad of Creations which unsurprisingly ALL require user made patches and fixes.   Can't even get that right.  It's not like they fixed critical quest and other bugs that have been there forever either because that's money going out, not into the coffers.

Anyway, I'm just hoping they don't screw with Fallout 4, but I wouldn't be surprised if that's next on the list.  💀

Current Load Order If anyone's interested.  However, I have several profiles and they use slightly different mods, but mainly armours and follower changes or other mods I'm trying out.  There are several large world space mods that rotate in and out as well so the ones in here are what I'm using atm.

PLUS a LOT of SKSE and DAR animation mods.   Especially impressed with spears and rapiers.

[spoiler]  0  0     Skyrim.esm
  1  1     Update.esm
  2  2     Dawnguard.esm
  3  3     HearthFires.esm
  4  4     Dragonborn.esm
  5  5     RSkyrimChildren.esm
  6  6     Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Patch.esp
  7  7     3DNPC.esp
254 FE   0 RealisticWaterTwo - Resources.esm
  8  8     AKSkyrimUnderground.esm
           arnima.esm
  9  9     Vuldur.esm
254 FE   1 MorrowindCreatures.esl
254 FE   2 1wraiths.esl
 10  a     Apachii_DivineEleganceStore.esm
 11  b     Vominheim.esm
254 FE   3 Expressive Facegen Morphs.esl
254 FE   4 Knight of The Village Set.esl
254 FE   5 1FalconerArmor.esl
254 FE   6 SkyUI_SE.esp
 12  c     Immersive Sounds - Compendium.esp
254 FE   7 20 More Perk Points.esp
254 FE   8 3DNPC0.esp
 13  d     EnhancedLightsandFX.esp
 14  e     ELFX - Exteriors.esp
 15  f     Weapons Armor Clothing & Clutter Fixes.esp
 16 10     ESOimports.esp
 17 11     Snazzy Furniture and Clutter Overhaul.esp
 18 12     Relationship Dialogue Overhaul.esp
 19 13     Book Covers Skyrim.esp
 20 14     JKs Skyrim.esp
 21 15     Summermyst - Enchantments of Skyrim.esp
254 FE   9 YOT - Your Own Thoughts.esp
254 FE   a BetterQuestObjectives-DBForevertoMisc.esp
254 FE   b CC'sEnhancedOreVeinsSSE-HearthfirePatch.esp
254 FE   c CommunityOverlays3.esp
 22 16     DiverseDragonsCollectionSE.esp
 23 17     FNIS.esp
 24 18     KS Hairdo's.esp
254 FE   d MCMHelper.esp
254 FE   e No NPC Greetings.esp
           NosPiercedEarsAll.esp
254 FE   f RaceMenu.esp
254 FE  10 RaceMenuPlugin.esp
254 FE  11 RealisticHuskySoundsSSE.esp
254 FE  12 RichMerchantsSkyrim_x5.esp
 25 19     SGEyebrows.esp
254 FE  13 Shout.esp
 26 1a     ShowRaceMenuAlternative.esp
 27 1b     SummonShadowMERCHANT.esp
 28 1c     Vivid WeathersSE.esp
254 FE  14 Vivid Weathers SE - Summer Season.esp
254 FE  15 WadeInWater.esp
 29 1d     XPMSE.esp
254 FE  16 YOT - Interesting NPCs.esp
 30 1e     iHUD.esp
254 FE  17 icepenguinworldmapclassic.esp
 31 1f     Vidani's Bag of Holding.esp
254 FE  18 RSC 3DNPC Patch.esp
 32 20     SmoothCam.esp
 33 21     FollowerWander2.esp
 34 22     GIST soul trap.esp
 35 23     LadyKdCirclets.esp
 36 24     UIExtensions.esp
 37 25     AddItemMenuSE.esp
 38 26     ImmersiveInteractions.esp
 39 27     TheEyesOfBeauty.esp
 40 28     The Eyes Of Beauty - Elves Edition.esp
 41 29     Immersive Weapons.esp
 42 2a     Smilodon - Combat of Skyrim.esp
254 FE  19 YOT - Smilodon.esp
 43 2b     AI Overhaul.esp
 44 2c     Skyrim Immersive Creatures Special Edition.esp
254 FE  1a ELFX Fixes.esp
 45 2d     JK's - ELFX Patch.esp
 46 2e     Immersive Encounters.esp
 47 2f     Odin - Skyrim Magic Overhaul.esp
254 FE  1b Vyn Exports - Ice Claws 2.esp
 48 30     mrbs-uniqueloot-se.esp
           GA88.esp
 49 31     FarmCo.esp
 50 32     skyBirds_SSE.esp
 51 33     Realm of Lorkhan - Custom Alternate Start - Choose your own adventure.esp
254 FE  1c BetterQuestObjectives.esp
254 FE  1d BetterQuestObjectives - BCS Patch.esp
 52 34     NewArmoury.esp
 53 35     I5K Treasure Hunt.esp
 54 36     Guards_Armor_Replacer.esp
           MVF1FollowerBeta.esp
 55 37     TheChoiceIsYours.esp
 56 38     Animallica.esp
 57 39     Summermyst - WACCF Patch.esp
 58 3a     ColovianNobleClothes.esp
254 FE  1e Immersive Encounters - RS Children Patch.esp
 59 3b     OneWithNature.esp
254 FE  1f RSChildren.esp
254 FE  20 RealisticRSChildren.esp
254 FE  21 Skyrim Unlimited Rings And Amulets SSE.esp
254 FE  22 YOT - Odin.esp
254 FE  23 YOT - Immersive Sounds.esp
254 FE  24 SIC - Immersive Sound Integration.esp
254 FE  25 FasterMiningPlusSE.esp
 60 3c     At Your Own Pace - Thieves Guild.esp
 61 3d     SkyrimsUniqueTreasures.esp
 62 3e     BirdsAndFlocks_SSE.esp
 63 3f     WayshrinesIFT.esp
254 FE  26 YOT - SWIFT.esp
 64 40     CFTO.esp
 65 41     Cloaks.esp
 66 42     OBIS SE.esp
 67 43     RiversideLodge.esp
 68 44     Inigo.esp
 69 45     multifollowerlite.esp
 70 46     Oakwood.esp
 71 47     fallentreebridgesSSE.esp
254 FE  27 JKs Skyrim - AI Overhaul Patch.esp
254 FE  28 mihailnixad.esp
 72 48     ACatsLife.esp
254 FE  29 Immersive Weapons_WACCF_Patch.esp
 73 49     PrvtI_HeavyArmory.esp
254 FE  2a Usable lantern.esp
254 FE  2b Usable Lantern - Lighting -  ELFX.esp
 74 4a     Immersive Patrols II.esp
 75 4b     Andromeda - Unique Standing Stones of Skyrim.esp
254 FE  2c RDO - USSEP Patch.esp
254 FE  2d YOT - Andromeda.esp
 76 4c     DogBackpack.esp
254 FE  2e sandboxcylinderheight.esp
 77 4d     UnreadBooksGlow.esp
 78 4e     Crimson Ranger Armor.esp
 79 4f     Real Bows SE.esp
254 FE  2f Snazzy_Inigo_Items.esp
254 FE  30 EVGConditionalIdles.esp
 80 50     Oblivion Horses.esp
254 FE  31 SimplestHorses.esp
254 FE  32 doticu_hide_your_quests.esp
254 FE  33 NibeneanArmorsAndOutfit.esp
           CuyiAntlers.esp
 81 51     DynamicDungeonLoot.esp
254 FE  34 DDLUniqueLootPatch.esp
254 FE  35 NoHeadTrack.esp
           WayshrinesIFTBeyondReach.esp
254 FE  36 TCIY BCS Patch.esp
254 FE  37 Snazzy_3DNPC_Items.esp
254 FE  38 ESOImports Wayshrine Patch.esp
 82 52     waterplants.esp
254 FE  39 Waymark.esp
 83 53     EmbersHD.esp
 84 54     Dunpar Wall.esp
 85 55     1Ogres.esp
 86 56     Fossilsyum.esp
254 FE  3a mihailgoblins.esp
           ssGWAltmerFollower.esp
 87 57     Reich Corigate.esp
254 FE  3b mihailcrow.esp
 88 58     Skyrim Flora Overhaul.esp
254 FE  3c ESOImports - JKs Skyrim Patch.esp
254 FE  3d CFTO-JK-Patch.esp
254 FE  3e Apachii_DivineEleganceStore_Patch.esp
 89 59     mihailindrik.esp
 90 5a     Phenderix Magic Evolved.esp
254 FE  3f s6o6t Lore - Dark Anchors Ruins and Dolmens.esp
 91 5b     mihailsheepflocks.esp
254 FE  40 Reich Corigate - Hammet Dungeon Patch By Kierep.esp
 92 5c     Knightofthorn.esp
 93 5d     bobsarmory.esp
254 FE  41 bob_halloween.esp
 94 5e     JS Armored Circlets SE.esp
254 FE  42 BeastHHBB.esp
254 FE  43 IBeasts - 3dNpcs.esp
 95 5f     3dnpc - Overhual.esp
 96 60     TakeNotes.esp
254 FE  44 Wolfpaint_Face.esp
254 FE  45 DX Dark Knight Armor - My Final Version by Xtudo.esp
 97 61     Ars Metallica.esp
 98 62     Cloaks - Dawnguard.esp
254 FE  46 SFCO - ELFX Patch.esp
254 FE  47 SFCO - 3DNPC Patch.esp
 99 63     TreasureHunterGarb.esp
254 FE  48 Bowgasm.esp
254 FE  49 mihaildraugrcavalry.esp
254 FE  4a PaarthurnaxQuestExpansion.esp
100 64     BPUFXelzazFollower.esp
           DBRevengeance.esp
254 FE  4b 3DNPC - AI Overhaul Patch.esp
           VitoFollower.esp
254 FE  4c mihailmountedfalmer.esp
           KozakowyFalkaArmor.esp
           Gladys.esp
101 65     mihailpixies.esp
102 66     CFTO-Lanterns.esp
103 67     OBIS SE Patrols Addon.esp
254 FE  4d fallenbridgesSSE-Patch.esp
           Merlin.esp
104 68     My Home Is Your Home.esp
105 69     Pinehelm.esp
106 6a     CFTO-CoveredCarriages.esp
107 6b     ForgottenMagic_Redone.esp
254 FE  4e ForgottenMagic_DisenchantableRings.esp
254 FE  4f 1WraithsSummonByXtudo.esp
108 6c     MeekoReborn.esp
           Ghorza's Armor.esp
109 6d     3DNPC_Dragonborn.esp
254 FE  50 AI Overhaul - Relationship Dialogue Overhaul Patch.esp
110 6e     Rapier and Dagger.esp
254 FE  51 BeastHHBB - Immersive Patrols II Replacer.esp
254 FE  52 BeastHHBB - Immersive Encounters Replacer.esp
111 6f     Animated Armoury - Summermyst Enchanted WACCF version.esp
254 FE  53 Smilodon-Immersive Weapons Patch.esp
254 FE  54 BeastHHBB - Relationship Dialogue Overhaul Replacer.esp
112 70     SkyrimSpearMechanic.esp
254 FE  55 USSEP-Immersive Weapons Patch.esp
254 FE  56 AnimatedArmoury-USSEP_patch.esp
254 FE  57 Rapier&DaggerNAESL.esp
           Sidekicks of Tamriel.esp
254 FE  58 Skyrim Spear Mechanic Balance tweaks_WACCF or CCOR.esp
254 FE  59 IW_AIOverhaul_Patch.esp
113 71     Heavy Armory - Summermyst Enchanted WACCF version.esp
254 FE  5a Skyrim Spear Mechanic - Summermyst Enchanted WACCF version.esp
254 FE  5b OBIS SE - Immersive Weapons Patch.esp
254 FE  5c Cloaks_WACCF_Patch.esp
254 FE  5d PrvtI_HeavyArmory_WACCF_Patch.esp
254 FE  5e SIC WACCF Patch.esp
254 FE  5f OBIS WACCF Patch.esp
114 72     FabLookEyesSSE.esp
115 73     Skyshards.esp
116 74     Armor of Intrigue.esp
117 75     BlanketScarf.esp
254 FE  60 NoBSAIProjectileDodge.esp
254 FE  61 Vominheim - Crows.esp
118 76     Vominheim - Grasses.esp
254 FE  62 Vominheim - Cats.esp
254 FE  63 Vominheim - DK's Realistic and Lore-Friendly Nord Ships patch.esp
119 77     Vominheim - Unique Weapons.esp
120 78     GirlHeavyArmor.esp
           BorealHunterArmor.esp
           Nebarra CTFO Patch.esp
           mihailhelhest.esp
254 FE  64 Lamenthia's Marks of Beauty.esp
254 FE  65 Kai_3DNPC-WACCF_Patch.esp
           BloodWitchArmor.esp
           KirstenFollower.esp
           VelvetRobesandCloaks.esp
254 FE  66 Knight of The Village Set - My version by Xtudo.esp
121 79     KS Jewelry.esp
254 FE  67 At Your Own Pace - Dark Brotherhood.esp
254 FE  68 At Your Own Pace - College of Winterhold.esp
254 FE  69 At Your Own Pace - Misc.esp
254 FE  6a At Your Own Pace - Main Quest.esp
122 7a     Complete Alchemy & Cooking Overhaul.esp
254 FE  6b CACO_BookCoversSkyrim_Patch.esp
254 FE  6c Inigo_CACO_Patch.esp
254 FE  6d CACO_True Fortify Effects for Magic Skills.esp
254 FE  6e CACO_USSEP_Patch.esp
123 7b     Predator Vision.esp
254 FE  6f Predator Vision_CACO_Patch.esp
254 FE  70 CACO_SkyrimImmersiveCreaturesSE_Patch.esp
124 7c     Ordinator - Perks of Skyrim.esp
254 FE  71 YOT - Ordinator.esp
125 7d     Forgotten Magic - Ordinator Compatibility Patch.esp
126 7e     Odin - Ordinator Compatibility Patch.esp
254 FE  72 CACO_Ordinator_Patch.esp
254 FE  73 Ordinator-Perk Descriptions.esp
254 FE  74 Ordinator_WACCF_Patch.esp
127 7f     RealisticWaterTwo.esp
128 80     WACCF_BashedPatchLvlListFix.esp
254 FE  75 Bashed PatchDorri, 0.esp
[/spoiler]

Tropical Skyrim - Run Through The Jungle

Well, this is something I never expected to see.  Tropical Skyrim - A Climate Overhaul by Soolie.
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/33017/

It's a massive download at 897mb but worth every byte in my opinion.   This mod bought me back to Skyrim after not playing for nearly 6 months and has given the game new life.   In fact it's like a totally new game in many respects.   Note that Soolie doesn't have any of the DLC's, and I don't either and don't care much, so I couldn't tell you how they may be affected.

There is now a high resolution texture pack by another author, however my PC would never manage it so apologies for what some would call crappy screenshots.   Click to enlarge for a better view.

Sandstorm

This screenshot was taken somewhere east of Solitude at sunset.   

I'm not going to go into other mod compatibility or such, but I have a lot of intense mods, some I removed for this, and I'll never go back now to the icy, snowy grey landscape.   The main mods I removed were other weather overhauls and lighting otherwise everything works.  Info can be found on the download page.

I must admit I was one of those Lore freaks when it came to Skyrim, but I've played it to death and eventually got bored with the same things over and over.   Now I'm enjoying myself immensely playing a full mage, no armour,  which I've never done before either.  Usually I play warrior types exclusively.

I'm not bothered by NPC comments re the weather and things like that at this point nearly 2 years down the track.  New players or stricter lore adherents than myself may be, but then it's their choice to install mods and accept the consequences of those choices.    Realize that this is a huge overhaul so the changes are immense.

It also makes more sense now considering that the NPC's of Skyrim wear clothes and armour unsuited to a freezing environment....no pants on leather armour and short sleeves on guard armour when they have full face helmets?? which looks ridiculous, for example.

Riverwood

Some creatures have been changed.   Raptors replace wolves which I wasn't entirely happy with at first, but now I don't miss wolves.   Trolls are now apes which look very good and some bears have been changed to pandas which is OK except I find it odd that pandas to be aggressive but that's the default AI.   Horkers are now seals and there are tigers and other animals, some I haven't yet seen.

I love the jungle look, but I think my favourite landscape is the deserts around Whiterun, Rorikstead and environs.  They remind me of the Elsweyr - Deserts of Anequina mod for Oblivion which I loved.

There are some issues, a few of which have been fixed in the first update, but none of these makes the mod unplayable in my opinion.   In fact my game runs better than it ever did now.  Soolie is working on another big update which I hope resolves the issues of extremely loud bird sounds, trees blocking access in caves and dungeons (can be console fixed as a temp measure), optional load screen replacers, and generally thinning out the jungle around Riverwood and Falkreath etc which often obscures roads and buildings. 

I can't imagine how long this mod took to create, but again, in my opinion, it's like a revelation and the only reason I'm now back playing the game.

There are some complimentary mods also made for this overhaul and others that will go well with it.  The ones I'm using are:
Tropical Skyrim - Mod More textures.    However, I'm only using the retex for Forsworn armour at the moment.
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/33263

Tropical Animals - Horse and Zebras.
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/33466

Prides of Skyrim.  Adds lion, tigers, panthers and a semi hidden boss named Scar.   Awesome mod.
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/12647

Finally, a shot of one of the moons over the desert at night.

You may never see this although I did endorse, comment and vote on Nexus, but thanks Soolie for breathing new life into Skyrim.

Still Playing Skyrim

 I know haven't written anything for awhile...not a lot to say at the moment, but I'm still playing Skyrim and working on other things.

At present, and with the 1.6 patch, my game has never been more enjoyable and that's saying something after all the problems I've had and complain at length about.  My only issue, and I've seen this on the Official and other forums, is regular and more frequent CTD's in the open world, but on the other hand I'm not having the annoying freezes so I'd rather have a CTD than a freeze.  Trouble is both can happen just standing around doing nothing, or in a dialogue or any other incomprehensible reason. Something changed in the patch as far as stability compared to 1.5, but that gave me too many total PC freezes, so I'd rather choose CTD over hard lockups.

I've also noticed some sound issues since this patch and I use no sound mods at the moment.  Things like fire crackling not playing properly and often looping sound on cell transition which nearly always happens in Riften and entering the Thieves Guild.  Sometimes the music stutters when changing tracks for a few seconds as well.  Possibly that can be fixed by reinstalling my sound drivers, but it's not a big enough deal at the moment and it doesn't happen in other games or programs like iTunes etc.

I also have to wonder when Bethesda are going to fix the dire dialogue bugs they introduced since the patch was released early in this month and now it's the 30th.  All I can say about that is thank goodness (again) for the Unofficial Patch.  Since I won't be buying the Dawnguard DLC until or unless there's a disc version, I imagine my choice of mods will lessen due to many that will require it.  I'll have moved on to other games by then so I can wait, or not bother.

It's possible the CTD's are caused by mods, but I find it unlikely due to the type of crash which as I said above can happen just idling or even in a menu.  I'm using the same mods, updated where necessary, that I've been using through several patches and a new game, so it's my opinion, right or wrong, that it's the crappy Gamebryo engine, thinly disguised as the new Creation Engine that's partly at fault.

I've also had a few corrupt saves and been unable to actually save after some of these CTD's, but I managed to overcome that without getting too frustrated.  Lost some progress, but at least not 100's of hours of play as in previous save corruption events.

Despite all that I'm being constantly amazed by the quality of mods being released for this game.  I'm having a great time with horses and the Convenient Horses mod which is just so well executed it seems more of a professional addon than a mod.  Then there's Wearable Lanterns, Deadly Dragons, Skyrim Monster Mod (Lore Friendlier Replacer) and my latest excellent find SkyRe Skyrim Redone.  Not to forget the brilliant lore friendly armours and weapons.

 To be clear, when I say Lore Friendly, I mean they fit into the world and don't look out of place in the environment.  Otherwise I don't really care about Lore as such.

To elaborate a little on SkyRe Skyrim Redone...that has brought back some (a lot) of enjoyable challenge to a game that was just too easy, no matter which difficulty was chosen.   Now I have to really use strategy and have even found it necessary to leave a few dungeons and come back later which never happened in vanilla.  I wasn't going to use followers this time, except for poor Meeko who I will always have with me, but I find I have to if I want to survive.  So, Marcurio...once again you're hired!  He's the only follower that doesn't get on my nerves and operates better than others I've tried, but I could do without his Chain Lightning spell which decimates everything in it's path and causes issues with other friendly NPC's, including Meeko.  A little FUS RO DAH usually fixes that though.  However, there have been many times I've been grateful for it with my latest game.

Marcurio "might" be retired soon though as I'm getting up in levels and I'm using summoned creatures, ie a wolf pack as a distraction, but I actually like having him along and he has his own horse.  Speaking of horses... I don't need my follower as a pack mule now because my steed has an inventory which comes in very handy when I've found hunters or other NPCs dead (by other means than myself) who have a huge amount of loot that I can use and hate to leave behind.

In other game news, unrelated to Skyrim, I bought Risen 2 which is also a very challenging and hard game, as I hoped it would be.  I'll probably start a topic for it later, but I'm really enjoying the pirate life.  I haven't played it lately because I'm on a roll with Skyrim and don't want to jinx it, but I think it's very good, even though there are some flaws.  I don't think the combat is as good as in the first Risen game, and I always find myself wanting to use a shield, but pirates don't use them.  I've gotten used to it though and have a pistol in my off hand, even though it's a bit useless at the moment.   I really love the voice acting and humour and the graphics are beautiful.

Anyway, that's about it for the moment.  Not much happening besides continuing work on LETHE the Indie game I'm involved with and progress is being made there, as well as a couple of things I'd like to be able to report about it, but can't yet.

Skyrim 1.6 Beta Patch - So far So Good

I've been playing with the Skyrim 1.6 beta patch and it's recent small update for around 20 hours and I must say the performance has been very good.  I'm running it with my existing character who is level 52 (I want to start new when it's official) and all the mods I was currently using and have had few problems.

The game runs better than it ever did, but I have had some CTD's and a freeze.  However, I put that down to mods, mainly the removing and adding I've done which is probably screwing up my saves and is my problem, so I'm very optimistic about a fresh game.   It's much better than the 1.5 performance and it's constant freezing, possibly due to the navmesh bug as I've been using the same mods without any changes for awhile now, and corrupted saves which so far hasn't happened again.  Fingers crossed.

I'm sure, unless it's my imagination, that my character now runs noticeably faster and more importantly, walks faster which was one of my bug bears when escorting or following quest NPC's.  At first I thought it was a fps increase and still may be, but I'm sure they increased player walk and run speed as well.  If I'm wrong, well I'm not complaining about it.  The game in general runs smoother, and load times have reduced noticeably even though they were pretty quick before anyway.  I've never had lag anywhere in the game since I first started playing, even at Markarth as some do, so I'm pretty happy at the moment with performance.

I rarely fast travel but when I did with the 1.5 patch I would often get a CTD on arrival or a never ending load screen, and sometimes a few areas would become off limits and I had to find another way round, which I attributed to bad spawns or navmesh issues and those spawns.  This hasn't happened so far with 1.6 as I've been fast traveling a bit more just to get this character through the main quest before I start over. 

I read the Official forums and the complaints about horse combat and animations, (and other stuff that is mod related), but I wish people would just use some common sense and realize if they opt in to a beta they should expect there may be issues.  After all, it's not Bethesda's responsibility to optimize the game around the many mods people may use.  The only thing they are responsible for is the vanilla game.

Beta Patch 1.6 - Finally Fixed Navmesh and Horse Combat

I'm pleased to say that my game loaded with the 1.6 patch (with the SKSE update for UI and menus) and I played for over an hour fiddling with the horse combat modes.

I had to go and buy a horse since my current level 52 character never bought one because of the companion not riding issue.  I do have a very good mod that allows followers to ride, but it gets to be a real pain checking up on them all the time and next play through I'm vowing to go solo at all times except for when it's quest related.

Followers are a pain in the neck, except for Meeko and or Vigilance.  The only one I do like is Marcurio and a couple of the Khajiits, but they are too overpowered now, and so am I due to the easy nature of the game, even on Master.  I would fire Marcurio, but he's carrying gear for me.   Next time we get home....maybe.
One thing I do not get...and that's the attraction to Lydia so many people seem to have.  OK, I guess because I'm not male or attracted to females is probably one reason, but I find her so annoying I just want to shout her off the nearest cliff.

Back to business.  Since I had just arrived at Winterhold when I last left the game I purchased a horse from their stables, but I'm going to trade him in for the Whiterun horse when I get back there as I prefer the leather Nordish type of horse armour for this character. 

Anyway, I found the horse combat a bit of fun and I would like to have the patience to persist with it's awkward controls.   It's quite difficult to control the horse and focus on the enemy.  The biggest problem is that the horse cannot walk backwards, so if I want to turn to get into a better position I end up going in  circles, never easily facing or staying close to my foes.  The number of times I've died or almost died when trying to back a horse away from a great height is one example of this weird "no backup" mechanic.

It does work well for galloping past enemies...as in a drive by hack and slash... and I even took on a dragon on horseback which worked pretty well. It was actually a named dragon just raised by Alduin, although it did have shock effects (Deadly Dragons) I managed to avoid them easily on the horse, surprisingly. A frost troll was also taking the aggro off me which also helped.

Archery is a bit hit and miss so I didn't even try it on the dragon.  Even with the crosshair it's very difficult to hit the target, but the animations are very good and smooth, both for melee and archery IMHO. I hope they update to include magic.

I've seen a number of people say they have animations issues, but that is mod related.  Mods that add animations should be checked first, ie pose mods, and in particular mods that add altered skeletons to the female and male races.

It's still 50/50 whether it's worth persisting with using horses at all, although being from a horsey background in real life I would like to try.   This is at least a start and it still a Beta, but the controls need refining.  One other thing that would make it a better experience is a new dismount animation rather than the clumsy one we have now where we, or the horse are being damaged because it takes so long to dismount properly. 

As far as the rest of the patch I haven't noticed anything yet as I only played for a short time, but the game didn't crash (for a change) and it might be my imagination again, but the graphics and shadows look better or sharper.

Horse archery.  No target around.  Just practicing.

I do a lot of complaining about this game and 99.9% of it is justified (like save corruption,) but I must say it's a nice change to see a game developer doing things like this for free.   I'm no "fangirl" of any game developer.  I pay to use their products and I expect that product to work as advertised, even if it takes a few months or more considering it's games we're talking about here, but Bethesda seem to be outdoing themselves this time round.  Maybe they are making up for lack of support for the previous TES and Fallout games, but in reality they don't have to do it at all.  Other developers have gone the opposite way and try to gouge as much money as possible from the consumer, much to their eventual detriment.   I can't help feeling suspicious of free stuff though.  There's always a catch.  But that's me.

Patch 1.6 info and changelog here:  Note this is a Beta which you can opt in or out of.
http://forums.bethsoft.com/topic/1376244-details-on-upcoming-16-update-available-in-beta-on-steam/

Updated SKSE: 
http://skse.silverlock.org/

According to modders on the Official and other forums the Navmesh (pathing) bug has finally been fixed once and for all....unless something happens to change it.   I can't wait to see the awesome mods we lucky PC users will get to play with in the future because of this important, and long awaited fix.

Persistence Plus - Sometimes It Pays Off

Well by some means and thanks to the Eight Divines (but I prefer Talos be included ) I've managed to get my game to load and play for an hour or so....just until it CTD'ed.  I would have reloaded but it was so cold here in the early hours (even with a heater on) I had to forego continuing because my fingers were cramping up with the cold. A CTD is OK though as I much prefer a crash to desktop than constant freezing. Not to mention corrupt saves.

I have all my saves backed up, although I don't keep all of them otherwise I'd have a folder with GB's of saves. But, I found one lonely Autosave that worked from a few levels back when I launched the game via the Skyrim launcher by mistake instead of with SKSE, and it detected my system settings again. I let it create the new ini settings so Auto saves were still on, until I changed it as soon as I got in the game, but it did have time to make one...the lucky one it seems.

Suffice to say I may be able to continue and I made a number of new hard saves (that are working so far) just in case since all the others are useless.

This time I've increased the difficulty from Adept to Expert because I'm just one hitting everything at level 52 which is no fun at all, (except Deadly Dragons!)but it doesn't seem to be any harder. Next playthrough I'm going to invest in some mods that reduce the fast leveling and make the game a bit more challenging, as well as trying out Master difficulty, but I'll try to finish with this character first. If I add anything to her mod list, or heaven forbid remove any mods which can be worse, I'm afraid it will break the fragile status quo.

A week or so away from the game makes one appreciate just how beautiful the world is though when you're not seeing it all the time.  Like the old saying..."Absence make the heart grow fonder."

No-one can say I'm not persistent.  And I didn't have to reinstall which would have been a pain.  Must be the luck of the Irish and determination to not let these things beat me.

Skyrim - Frustration Plus

What the hell is it with this game?

I don't get it.  Yesterday I played the game for two separate sessions of around 4 hours each. No problems at all. I saved at High Hrothgar and exited until today. In fact since the 1.5 patch I've had very few issues with CTD's and freezes.

Now tonight I can't play at all because the game freezes my system completely after a few minutes. The game just stops dead and I had another infinite loading screen as well. I haven't done anything today except browse the Internet and nothing else has changed.   I'm about ready to give up for good this time, but tomorrow I'll try reinstalling my graphic drivers just for kicks since I've done everything else like verify the game cache, defrag, make sure the PC is dust free etc, etc ad nauseum. Last resort will be to reinstall the game, but I'm not in the mood to do that just now and I'm certainly not reinstalling Windows for one blasted game to run properly.

Five times I tried to play tonight with the same result and I'm concerned about my HDD's with having to reset from so many hard freezes. I only bought my new HDD a few months ago because the last one died (faulty and different brand) and I don't want it to happen again.

I used to spend a lot of time troubleshooting Oblivion, usually because of mods, so I don't blame the actual game and I could fix my issues by research or just from previous experience.    A console port is another thing entirely because even a player like myself who researches and makes sure everything possible is checked is out of luck.

I haven't installed any new mods except for an armour mod, but that was days ago and everything was running well until tonight, so who knows.

It seems I will never get a character past level 57 (my 1st character before her saves were corrupted) or finish the main quest.  It's not a save bloat issue as my saves are only 9MB at level 51 with most of the Guilds completed and a ton of other quests as well.  This is so damn frustrating I feel like breaking the disc in half and forgetting I ever heard of Skyrim. I'd rather play my other games that don't do this, some of which are as system intensive, but obviously better optimized.

Screw the DLC if this is going to happen again and again, and since it looks like we won't be getting any new patches from Bethesda any time soon.  They haven't fixed a tiny fraction of what the Unofficial Patch team has done.

I said in my other post tonight that I have a love/hate relationship with this game and at the moment I HATE it.

I play games as an escape from reality so this is doing nothing for my depression and anxiety issues.

Skyrim Longevity Vs Previous TES Games

 

 This post involves some of the things I've said previously but is more about the longevity of the game compared to other TES games.  It has it's virtues and it's problems, unfinished features (followers and horses, guilds and other things) and my experience with it has come to the point that I sometimes I want to forget I ever bought it and other times I love it to death. 

 

 Anyway:

I've just been reading through the latest Unofficial patch thread which is very informative regarding the pitfalls and limitations of the game, the CK and using mods. A very enlightening read.
http://forums.bethsoft.com/topic/136686 ... -thread-6/

I use, fully endorse and recommend the Unofficial Patch myself and I believe it has saved me a lot of headaches from previous attempts to play the game compared to the basic patching Bethesda has done for this game. One look at the very long list of fixes should be enough for anyone to wonder why the developers haven't addressed these issues themselves. While some things are edits to wrongly placed statics and what may seem fairly minor things to some people, a great many of them actually correct issues with quests and bugs that actually break the game in major ways.

This isn't meant to be an angry rant about Bethesda, or one of those "This game sucks" posts as I realize a game of this size and complexity is bound to have issues, however due to the fixed release date and apparent lack of attention to these issues I believe they've bought a lot of warranted criticism on themselves. Whether this is due to the business side of things which the developers would probably have little control over or not, I don't know. I do wonder if BGS are planning another patch before the DLC comes out which in my view will be pointless since it's already been done for them, so why would they.

A little history from my Skyrim experience. This outlines the main issues I've had and which I've written about in more depth in other posts.  I'm actually surprised that I'm still playing the game after all the crap I've had with it, although it has been more stable since 1.5, so I suppose this could actually be seen as a complaining thread depending on your point of view.

Currently I'm playing my 5th character due to save corruption on the others, the messed up Navmesh bug BGS tried to fix with the latest patch and failed, which made house and landmass edits or additions a disaster area and post official patch issues. This is with a vanilla game as well as modded. I did have one house mod that I liked, but now I don't use any because of possible future problems if and when there's another official patch where mods constantly have to be updated.

I have not yet managed to complete the main quest once past the first battle with Alduin at The Throat of the World which is mainly because I want to do it at an appropriate level and don't believe it should be done, or be able to be done early in the game. I'm not blaming anyone for that, it's just how I want to do it considering I'm supposed to saving the world at the height of my power, not as a lowly starter hero. I'm hoping to do it soon with my current character if all goes well.  So far so good...mostly except for some freezing and CTD's.

I played for over 200 hours with my first character from release day with virtually no problems at all on a totally vanilla game, (skipped the 1.2 patch disaster), and suddenly my game started freezing and crashing so much I had to start over. It wasn't a save game bloat issue either as my saves never reached over 12MB at level 57.  Then for some unknown reason the whole area around Riften and the town itself was a no go zone, which has resolved itself since the 1.5 patch, or by some miracle.   Needless to say that crimped my experience somewhat when I couldn't complete certain quests.

It seems to me that the further I get into the game, ie around level 50 or so, the more quests I do, dungeons explored etc the more the game becomes unstable and starts to falter. I'm a bit of a completionist when it comes to rpg's so if the content is there, I want and should be able to do it, except for things I choose not to do like some of the Daedric quests and the DB because I find them not to my taste.

I had thought about modding until I read about the limitations and bugs in the CK which is contrary to what we were told and more limiting than the Oblivion CS. I know of several well known modders from Morrowind and Oblivion who have mods in stasis because of the navmesh and other bugs that are waiting to be solved. There's also a noticeable absence of other well known great modders creating for this game, or they've already come and gone, back to Oblivion or for good.

I imagine BGS consider the modding scene as a huge success due to Steamworks and the number of mods there and on the Nexus, but what happens when all the armour, weapon, house mods and other mods that don't involve large quests and scripted changes come to a virtual standstill.  Unless something changes soon Skyrim's longevity will be years less than Morrowind and Oblivion.  That is not a complaint or meant to offend current mods and their authors, but in my opinion the limit will be reached much sooner than those previous games.

At the top of this post I linked the Unofficial Patch thread.  There's a good explanation about why mods can so easily mess up this game compared to Oblivion and it makes me wonder how long I'll play Skyrim after I've seen and done all there is to see and do. Which won't be that long since I've done most of it several times and even now find myself avoiding quests because I know what's going to happen and it becomes boring to do them again and again.

I used to play Oblivion with over 200 mods, some of them very complex overhauls and I could troubleshoot nearly any problem I came up against as well as mod it myself. I only stopped playing the game early this year in fact and it was my only constant game since it's release. Not so with Skyrim, and along with some of the other irritations and annoyances it's going to be almost impossible to even come close to that number of mods even though the limit is still 255.

All I can say is I have an extreme love/hate relationship with Skyrim and it's taken six months since release to be able to play it with some degree of confidence I can continue with a character without something going wrong. It's with great trepidation that I add mods now and nothing that adds scripts if I can help it since if I need to remove a mod that info is in my save for good and can possibly and probably will cause save corruption, so I'll be starting over again.   If I can be bothered.

I know I'm not alone in this and the longer it takes for the DLC to be released the less likely it will be I'll be playing the game, especially if the DLC is digital only and not released on disc. I don't do digital for a couple of reasons...budget and dislike of download only media.

I'm also aware that many people say they've had no problems with their game after many 100's of hours, but because of so many different PC configurations and other considerations I think they are the lucky ones. The fact I could play successfully myself for over 200 hours tells me something went wrong AFTER release with the incremental patches and having to start over after each one gets to be very annoying.

Now I've got that off my chest I've just had one of the never ending loading screens where I couldn't bring up the Task Manager to end the process, (first time it's happened.) so I wasn't impressed.   I imagine it's because the game crashed soon after saving and messed it up.  Luckily I save so often (paranoid) I had one fairly close.

Skyrim is a beautiful game, but graphics aren't everything.  The world is spectacular, I love the dragons and the combat, but there's so much that needs fixing to keep my interest and that means real fixes, not gimmicks like extra kill cams as much as I like them.  As soon as a month or two after I started playing the NPC's and repetitive voices started to grate on my nerves, so much that I use a  mod that shuts them up as far as greetings and vendor dialogue goes.  It's things like this and other stupid stuff Bethesda just keep doing over and over in their games that makes the issues with Skyrim that much more annoying. 

If another similar open world rpg came along without all the problems, it would be goodbye, but that doesn't seem likely in the near future.

Skyrim - Post 1.5 Patch Happiness!

After the last downer post I can at least say I am very, very happy with my game since the 1.5 patch.  In dozens of hours and two new characters I made out of necessity because previous saves wouldn't load due to mods I removed, I've only had a few CTD's and a couple of "Skyrim is unresponding" incidents. I can live with that...lol.

I even like the archery and magic kill cams since they don't happen too often to be annoying and the water and DOF looks great...under and over.   Shadows on the grass look a bit crappy, but I've read upgrading to the latest Nvidia drivers can fix that.  I have them but haven't gotten around to installing them yet.

I've revived my sneaky Khajiit, Tukassi and in a twisted kind of masochistic way (after all the drama I've had with my game) I'm glad I had to because I've built her class much better this time round.  The first incarnation was my first ever character and more of a leaning experience with the new perks and such.

The second new character is a Redguard warrior, one handed, shield and archery who I'm is rapidly becoming my favourite.  I guess you could say the other short lived characters i had were test runs.

Her name is Eshe which is an Egyptian name meaning Life...or so the name site I found it on says.

Not the greatest screen shot but this is just after killing the dragon at Whiterun which was an experience in itself with awesome Deadly Dragons mod and it's "Events" which I had to turn off for the time being.  Being suddenly confronted with a Deathlord and a Lich summoning minions at level 5 was a bit much and I only got to see them for a split second before I died anyway.  They popped up behind me as I was entering the scripted dragon zone at Whiterun.  After two deaths to the same event I reloaded again and got another very powerful dragon instead, so I spent most of the time hiding in the tower and taking potshots at a fire dragon and a shock dragon like a little coward.  They both could one shot kill me otherwise.  I did actually get the final kills on both and it took half an hour, real time, but I enjoyed every minute of it.  The adrenaline was really high, I can tell you.

 I'm also using the Ultra Realistic World Lighting mod which is just excellent.  I never knew the game could look as good as it does with what may seem a simple mod, but must have taken an insane amount of work and that has no performance loss at all, which is great for us who can't, or don't want to use the Bethesda Hi Res texture pack.  I don't because I use better 3rd party texture replacers and then not for everything.  Besides, my system would hate me if I tried the Hi Res pack and personally my game looks beautiful to me and that's all that really matters.

I'm still keeping the game offline with Steam in case another patch messes something up, but as I said before I've stopped reading the "horror" posts after a patch is released because it's more often that not, user error and mods that need updating.  Not always, but usually. 

My only gripe now is Steam and how long it takes to exit and that it sometimes it errors on exit because the Game Overlay doesn't shutdown making it necessary for me to log in otherwise Steam says it's not present on my system, which I don't want to do, but things could be worse.  It could be Origin.  Now, though I make sure Game Overlay shuts down through Task Manager before exiting Steam which is a minor annoyance in the scheme of things. 

RealSwords and WAC Content for Skyrim

Just a quick additional note for anyone who used RealSwords and/or Waalx Animals and Creatures in Oblivion and might be interested in knowing that some (a lot) of these things are being converted.   Some things, mainly creatures, can't be done though because they are based on Oblivion meshes, but some can and are being done.   Not by me though.  I'm not that talented.

RealSwords Nord is already released at the Nexus as I mentioned in a previous post, but you can read about what else is happening either here at Waalx forum (needs registration)
http://waalx.com/RealSwordsForum/index.php

Or here at the Official forums, but not all info is there.
http://forums.bethsoft.com/topic/1357161-relz-the-chronicles-of-steel-skyrim/

Skyrim and a Late New Year's Resolution

You know I really, REALLY have to stop reading doomsday posts on various forums when new patches are coming out, or have been released for Skyrim, and how people's games are adversely affected.  I'm going to attempt to make it my late New Year's Resolution for 2012, but how many people stick with their resolutions...lol.

Sometimes it can be entertaining in a "face palm" kind of way.   The number of posters who create threads, particularly on the Official forums, complaining about what they hate about the game, are never playing or buying another Bethesda game, or just want their 15 minutes of forum fame by starting a flame war never ceases to amuse me.  It might be a bit twisted but I often enjoy reading about the drama and stupidity of my fellow humans as long as it's not about me.

And there's another subject I'll be talking about at some point in the near future.  Forums and the people who inhabit and hide behind them.   It won't be especially pleasant and I know there are a lot who will agree with me.  It won't be about any specific forum, but I'm sure people will get the gist of it and will know of similar situations.  I'm just happy to have found this outlet to voice my frustrations on various topics, and though I could, if I wanted to be, quite outspoken and vitriolic, most times I find that to be counter productive.  Anyway, as I said, that's another story.

 Back to business...After reading the "horror" posts on a couple of forums (again) I was once hesitant about updating my game to the 1.5 patch.  I finally bit the bullet and ended up going ahead, and I'm having no issues whatsoever.  Not the underwater bug, no shadow problems, (in fact I think they look much better) and no crashing on fast travel or entering buildings which seem to be the main complaints.   I also think the graphics look better or sharper, which might be my imagination, and I'm not using the DLC graphics patch because my system would hate me.  I do have a lot of  mod texture replacers though.

Having said that I am still using, and will continue to use the Unofficial Skyrim Patch.

However, I think a lot of problems, (but not all obviously since I've had previous genuine issues as have other people), are due to the fact many users have no idea how to manage their game or the desire to find out.  Sometimes it comes down to laziness, not reading the documentation and unreasonable expectations.  Patches to a base game are NOT supposed to be made to accommodate the myriad number of mods and their users and the sooner people realize this the better.  For the most part mods are also not created with other mods compatibility in mind otherwise it would be almost impossible to actually do anything.

I have noticed a few things with the 1.5 patch though.  My bow damage skyrocketed and the archery kill cam often doesn't complete or kill the victim.  I'm not really sure about the bow damage part as it may be tied into perks or some other variable and I'm not into the facts and figures behind it.  I'm not complaining though as it still seems to be balanced between enemies and myself.   Apparently there's a glitch with smithing, but I'm already at 100 so I can't comment on that and I only have one character at present.  The navmesh bug was supposedly fixed, but it seems it needs another look over as this seems to be the cause of the problem with house mods causing CTD's and I believe Bethesda are aware of it.

I have noticed improvements to companions.  I have Marcurio and Meeko.  They both have much improved sneaking and the biggest bugbear of mine where they would block doors seems to have been fixed, especially for Meeko and I assume Vigilance.  Meeko now moves away as soon as I bump him.  I saw Marcurio do a sneak roll move as well when we were creeping up on a bandit camp, which was quite a surprise and he doesn't break my sneak anymore....or not so much, but it's usually because he's been spotted while I'm still in sneak mode.

I realize the humanoid companions can be told to move via their menus, but that annoys the crap out of me.  I hated companion menus in Oblivion and I detest it in Skyrim.  Since there obviously has to be a way to communicate with companions I would have liked to see the same system as used in New Vegas with the companion wheel, but you can't have everything.  Unfortunately.

 I've done my fair share of complaining here about issues I've had with the game and when it actually comes down to it they are relatively minor things in the grand scheme...for the most part.  I almost gave up altogether when all my saves were corrupted, or so the game thought awhile back.  That made me so angry I can't describe it after 100's of hours invested but now with my new character I'm at 119 hours and level 59,
(oops 49) so I'm crossing fingers and toes it doesn't happen again.  I haven't even finished the main quest once yet because of the problems I've had, and not for lack of trying.

I have a list of things I think should have been done better, but neither am I a programmer or game developer.  Games with the scope of Skyrim are bound to have bugs and glitches and the rushed release date made that so much more obvious this time round.   That's where I put the blame the most and that's not so much on the developers as the "money men" and hype filled advertising with the usual failed promises.

I'm not a fan"girl" by any means though.  Bethesda games are always buggy and I don't worship the ground any game developers walk on like many do.  If it weren't for the fact that Bethesda games are so moddable and open world, I probably wouldn't even bother keeping the games installed after one play through.  I've always been of the opinion that Oblivion was like a half finished canvas shipped so modders could finish and polish it.  I found it to be shallow and highly repetitive and the only reason I continued to play it was because of mods.

People keep comparing Skyrim to either a fully modded Oblivion, which is unfair, or to Morrowind which is also a bit silly.   MW was the first RPG I ever played and as much as I loved it, at the time, I would never go back to that style of play.  It's also another game main quest I never finished despite the time I put into it over the years until Oblivion came along.

One of these days I'll post the mods I'm using and recommend, if anyone cares...lol.  But, I tried out the Horse Armour mod and it is just amazing.  Much better by far than a cheap DLC, I might add.  Another mod I added last night is Skyrim Monster Mod and I'm having a blast with that one as well.  I used MoMod for New Vegas and the authors work is just as good this time and importantly for me, lore friendly.

Horse Armour - works with companions horse mods as well as you can see.

Skyrim Official Patch 1.5 Beta Vs Unofficial Patch Beta

Well the Official Skyrim Patch 1.5 is in Beta at the moment, but I'll be holding off this time and making bloody sure Steam doesn't download even when it when it goes live out of Beta, UNLESS I damn well say so.  I don't know how many times I've changed the options in Steam to say "Do not keep this game updated" and it doesn't apply.   I'm sure new killcams are very exciting for some, but I'm more interested in bug and quest fixes before cinematics.  Besides that this patch breaks the CK so that will also need patching. 

However because of a Steam issue I'm having it will probably bite me in the backside and download, but maybe, just maybe I'll catch it first.  I'm finding myself joining some of the Steam bashers.  Lately I've been having an issue with Steam where it won't shutdown when I want it to after I exit the game, or if the game CTD's and I've finished playing for the time being.  This requires me to login to Steam, otherwise it says there's no valid info on my computer and it cannot be run offline because of whatever is causing the error.  This would probably be fixed by rebooting the PC, but since the process won't end and is looped, ie - shutdown any program using this app - (and none are after ending an offending one in Task Manager, which is usually a process called Game Overlay), or I get an error message followed by the same shutdown process crap.   Steam updated last night after one of these little forays into annoyance land, so hopefully it fixes itself next time I play.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand.   The Unofficial Patch team (Kivan atm) has released Beta 1.2 which when you compare the list of important fixes against the Bethesda patch is really something of wonder.  Four  months approximately, including testing and checking, and only two of those months with the CK, and this is what is produced compared to five patches from the developers and one of those in particular broke so many things...

Official topic with download link
http://forums.bethsoft.com/topic/1358353-beta-unofficial-skyrim-patch-thread-2/ 

Download link which is in the forum topic anyway.
http://www.darkcreations.org/forums/files/file/205-unofficial-skyrim-patch/

The wise dragon says...check out the Unofficial Patch now....

The list is huge.  Granted many things like misplaced trees aren't that dire in the scheme of things, but the number of quest and other things like game mechanics, mesh and textures fixes, creature and NPC fixes, dialogue, item placements, and much, much more is amazing.  Why has it taken the actual developers of the game this long to even acknowledge a tiny fraction of these, in particular the important yet broken quests, some of the perks (ie block), crafting exploits and other much talked about issues that need to be addressed. 

Bashing Bethesda for their buggy games is just a pointless exercise and the fanboys and girls who worship the ground they walk on can think what they like, but I have to wonder why Bethesda is focusing on things like killcams and gimmicks they know all the cool kids will go ape over, when vital things like broken quests and perks seem to be way down on the list of priorities.  New features would be nice, and I like the cinematics myself as long as they aren't too frequent, and as some have asked, there's an option to turn them off if preferred.    The game bugs and glitches should be fixed once and for all by the actual people who made the game and not leave it to modders to fix as every other TES and Fallout game.  And, yes I know they probably have different teams for different things, they also have to code for consoles, and these things have been said a million times by people, but really....

Here's a link to the Official Beta Patch changelog and a video.   It's opt in at Steam at the moment so back up important saves before trying it out.   You may or may not detect my lack of enthusiasm due to previous experiences with "Official patches."
http://www.bethblog.com/2012/03/15/new-features-highlight-1-5-update/

Oh, what happened here.....they are broken.

Let's wait and see.  I'm afraid I have more faith in our experienced and respected modders to do the important things than the actual developers, and more results in a shorter time frame.  

Horses, Followers and Fun With Draugr

I found an excellent mod that allows followers to ride their own horse and to say it works beautifully is an understatement. 
Horse For Followers
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=11193

There are a couple of mods like this but I tried this one first and I cannot say enough how much I'm loving it.  I wish Bethesda had done something like this for followers at the very least.

Mind you there are a lot of comments where people are having problems but it may be other follower packages or something else.  I have no idea really.  All I know is it works for me.  I purchased my first horse at the same time as Marcurio's from the stables at Whiterun via the dialogue options and it worked.  I also don't have any other mods that affect followers or horses except Essential Horses and I don't plan to use different followers, at least for this character and she's my only one at the moment since i got my game working properly.

I must admit I've only used it so far with Marcurio, but he's well and truly got the idea.  But, I can't see why other followers shouldn't be the same as their packages should be basically similar, except maybe for the House Carls like Lydia, who I don't use as her comments annoy me.   Not only does Marcurio mount when I do, but he dismounts when an enemy is near and attacks them.  If I remount my horse and ride off leaving him to find his horse, he does so, no matter how far back it is and catches up to me.  It's like it was already in the game.

I just wish I could do a quick dismount myself instead of the awkward almost fall off my horse animation, and sometimes having to mash the E key to get off when I'm ambushed.   The only thing about this mod and it's not a complaint...is the author, Jorne, made the horses run away a short distance when danger approaches, whereas my horse runs in like a kamikaze. Sometimes we have to find his horse, especially if we're in a wooded area...and mine as well since they don't have a location marker.  However, as I said, I've taken to just mounting up and moving on and he finds his horse without any problems. 

This is a better pic of my character Sonje.  She's a Nord, a light armour, sword and shield warrior.and I have Marcurio as ranged backup. Sooner or later I'm going to do some writing and outline some characters and adventure stories which I'll post here.

These next two screen shots are of Draugr using weapons from RealSwords Nord which is soon for release.
Shingouki is doing a great job of getting these weapons in game and the other racial blades will follow later.

Poor Farkas.  I did heal him after although he's essential for this quest.  Just makes me feel better...lol.

RealSwords Skyrim

In case anyone is interested Waalx RealSwords mods are being converted to Skyrim by Shingouki and great progress is being made.  So far only the Nord weapons are in being made, but if all goes well the others will probably be converted as well.

It's a lot of work and Shingouki really deserves kudos for doing this.  It's not only going to be a conversion of the blades, but there will be added content and lore as well.  The textures look beautiful and the blades work well, as expected.

Info here (registration required)
http://waalx.com/RealSwordsForum/index.php

Or here:
http://forums.bethsoft.com/topic/1336015-wip-realswords-port-to-skyrim/

This is a shot from my game so the textures will look different on a better system than mine.

So Far, So Good

Well, I've reinstalled Skyrim and got as far as level 8 with a new character with only one freeze and no CTD's at all so far.  I'm also using the same mods I was before, plus a few more.  I cringe every time I save though and shut my eyes hoping it doesn't crash on saving again and more importantly that it doesn't corrupt all my saves.

I've even been to Riften and done a number of quests there, but I made sure to do it before progressing the main quest where dragons start spawning.   That's because every other time my game has crashed or frozen around Riften when a dragon appeared there (with one character) or just froze or crashed for no perceptible reason anywhere around and south of Riften with both characters, and that was right from the start when the game was first released.

Anyway, this is Sonje, a Nord warrior.   The screen shot was taken at night under a house light so she seems to have weird blotches on her chest, but that was shadows as well, I think.   I don't care really as long as I can continue playing without problems and maybe get her to 200 hours like my poor lost Khajiit.
R.I.P. Tukassi.  I may just remake her at some stage anyway.

BTW, the new drivers from NVidia make a massive difference to the game.  It runs even smoother than before.

Skyrim: I Now Cannot Save My Game....Literally.

I've just about had a gutful of this game.  Really. 

I don't understand why I can play for hours one day and then the next play session, when absolutely nothing has changed on my PC from one day to the next, (the PC has been shutdown between sessions in fact) and something like I'm about to describe below occurs.   I've played and been able to troubleshoot Morrowind and Oblivion (modded Ob), both Fallout 3 and New Vegas, but I'm starting to agree with other naysayers about this game.  At least the ones with intelligent complaints, not people who say "it sucks" just because they have nothing better to say.  None of the aforementioned games gave me anywhere near the frustration and problems as Skyrim has, even from the start and I bought them all on their release days.   I even upgraded my PC to play this damn game.

The best period of all was after the 1.3 patch where I had very few if any problems for many, many hours.   I've persevered through the stages of constant random freezing until that was mostly fixed by the 1.3 patch, then the random occasional CTD's which are tolerable since they were only happening infrequently.

The comes the 1.4 patch.   More random CTD's, freezing again, still the Riften issues persist and is in fact even worse and now.... this mess...   I've done a few searches on Google and some other people are having similar issues, sometimes mod related and others just vanilla, but no real answers. 

Last night I was fighting Spriggan Matrons in a cave during a quest for the beggar who is a war veteran in Solitude.  I was retrieving his helmet.  There were several Matrons and some normal Spriggans.  While in the middle of killing the last Matron the game had a massive CTD, combined freeze where I has to reset the PC.  Unlike other total freezes my mouse still worked momentarily, but on a frozen screen so I couldn't actually do anything.   Also this time, unlike other crashes the music and sound effects continued.  Never had that happen before either.  I don't believe it was the actual creatures as I'd already killed several of them, as well as a couple of bears. 

The problem isn't so much the CTD, but the after effects of this one which seem to be permanent.  Now I CANNOT save my game.  If I try to save, whether it's Quicksave, via the console, or ESC to Menu and save, the game just CTD's.   I could initially load any previous save without a problem and play as long as I liked (pending the next inevitable CTD of course) but as soon as I go to save....I'm at the Desktop.   Now the issue has progressed so all the saves are supposedly corrupt and cannot be loaded.  What was different about this CTD that it caused this to happen?

So then I deleted my ini's, removed a couple of mods I installed recently, logged into Steam and verified the game cache which was fine, and disabled mods I'd been using for 100's of hours.   I was able to finally load from an Autosave made when I used the Showracemenu to change my character's hair many hours of progress back.  Normally all autosaves are off.   I could then save normally, BUT only a couple of times and then the CTD's started again on saving and the saves I was able to create were corrupt when trying to load.  When saving I get a file with an ess.tmp extension instead of the normal save and it's half the size it should be, obviously because of whatever is causing this.  None of my "good" saves are larger than 14mb and that's on the oldest character who is level 57.  The other character's saves are 9.5mb at level 40.

Tonight I started a completely new game, deactivated mods that I've been using for 260 plus hours over two characters with no issues, got through the entire tutorial, ran to Riverwood with Ralof, did a couple of things there as well as enlisting Faendal, then went on to Whiterun fighting wolves along the way without a problem.

When I got to where the Companions were fighting a giant near Pelagiad Farm just outside Whiterun...instant CTD.   Tried again from a save near Riverwood, as the one I made near Whiterun was corrupt, including my Quicksave, headed back towards Whiterun, and this time I had enough time to release a prisoner being led by Imperials, kill them and head for the Whiterun stables.   Instant CTD.   Once again I CANNOT save and all of my previous saves are corrupt. 

The game even thinks the saves from my other characters (which are all backed up), are also corrupt, even the ones that have never been loaded since this problem started.  How the hell does that work?  Does the CTD cause a Registry error or something because I don't get it.   As I said two characters with over 260 and more hours between them and all their saves are seemingly corrupt as well, and starting a new character ends up the same after a few hours and one CTD.  This is utter bull crap.

Tomorrow I'm going to uninstall the game again, remove all traces of it, reinstall and see if anything changes and then I'll be on edge all the time waiting for the next big problem or the same one to reappear.  If that doesn't fix it the game will be shelved for six months until it's properly patched, or more likely forgotten about entirely when something better comes along.  I enjoy it immensely, love the open world and exploration, the dragons and more, but that's not enough to get me to persevere with this rubbish.  It's not worth the aggravation.

I'm waiting for Risen 2 and I hope to goodness Piranha Bytes doesn't rush it like Skyrim was rushed to a set date.   I actually haven't been keeping up with Risen 2's progress as I usually would, partly because I don't want to be disappointed and find they've dumbed down their game and also because I almost forgot about it.  Piranha Bytes are pretty true to their style and develop for the PC first though, so I'd be very surprised if they veered from it....unlike Jo Wood and the tragedy that was Gothic 4.

I try not to get too caught up in hype, but you know how that goes with newer games.   Sadly, we would all love to believe the spin and BS hoping for something half as great as is touted during development.  
I've seen a number of people say on forums that they would never buy another Bethesda game after the ongoing Skyrim bug fiasco, and I'd bet some of the same people said it about previous games, yet bought the next one.  However, if I am unable to get this game fixed and stable after trying every avenue, and if Bethesda don't patch it properly instead of worrying about the damn Steamworks for mods (ala the latest beta patch info) I will be one who will not look at another of their games.  


Out of interest, I wonder how the pirates are doing with their versions.  I paid for mine and all I get are headaches.